Doctors warn of long-term consequences of immigration detention

Updated
May 27, 2014 19:33:00

Doctors who have been to the Christmas Island detention facility warn that there will be long-term repercussions to the health and welfare of asylum seekers if serious concerns about the system are not addressed.

MARK COLVIN: A doctor who worked for the Immigration Department's healthcare provider says he has long-standing worries about the care given in offshore processing centres. Late last year a group of doctors including Dr John-Paul Sanggaran reported their fears to the provider, International Health and Medical Services, or IHMS. Dr Sanggaran says IHMS initially took the concerns seriously, but he believes nothing has changed in the system, and there will be long-term effects for asylum seekers.

Dr Sanggaran has spoken publicly for the first time, as Sarah Sedghi reports.

SARAH SEDGHI: Dr John-Paul Sanggaran worked at the Christmas Island Immigration Detention Facility last year. It was there he observed what he says are serious problems with the level of healthcare provided to asylum seekers.

JOHN-PAUL SANGGARAN: There are individuals who needed to be urgently transferred. We would see these patients and, unfortunately we would see them repeatedly day after day after day, and see their conditions worsen, the risks leaving them on island would increase with every day that passed. And we would advocate strongly for them, quite forcefully sometimes, and be the message would come back that there were one, no places available for them to transfer or two, that there would be a delay.

SARAH SEDGHI: Dr John-Paul Sanggaran, was part of a group of 15 doctors who raised concerns with their employer IHMS late last year through a detailed 92 page word letter. He says IHMS initially made efforts to hear the concerns of the doctors, but he does not believe anything in the system has changed since.

JOHN-PAUL SANGGARAN: After the letter came out, essentially there's been nothing more than a single page document, a single page letter that was sent to all of us. So I have no idea what has happened to many of the individuals that I'm concerned about. I've got not faith that, after being in that system, that things have changed in a positive manner, and that somehow now they receive adequate health care.

SARAH SEDGHI: Associate professor Karen Zwi is a paediatrician assisting the Human Rights Commission with the inquiry into children in immigration detention. She says that it's not just the healthcare, but the detention system itself that is harming people.

While at Christmas island earlier this year associate professor Karen Zwi found there were nearly 400 children at the facility, most had been there for six to eight months. She has strong concerns for the welfare of children.

KAREN ZWI: I don't think there was any interview that we undertook where either the parent or the child wasn't in tears as they told their story. They told us that nobody had really heard the story from the beginning to the end. They had no idea what was going to happen to them.

As any parent would, they were just seeking the best for their children. And not to be able to turn to your children and say, 'It's all going to be okay in the end' was really quite humiliating and very distressing for many of those parents.

SARAH SEDGHI: Associate professor Karen Zwi says the toll on adults and children in detention is physical and mental. She says the system leaves children, particularly those who are unaccompanied, vulnerable to long-term harm.

KAREN ZWI: We actually know from the literature and from the evidence that children who have been exposed to extreme stress and mentally difficult situations such as their own parents' depression can take many years to recover, and actually carry with them some of those anxieties and sometimes for the rest of their lives.

SARAH SEDGHI: Dr Sanggaran agrees the repercussions of time in detention will last a lifetime for some.

JOHN-PAUL SANGGARAN: Some of them, which I believe will live them with life-long complications as a result of their delay. And some of them, their medical problems were actually as a result of their detention. So the whole situation, I think, should have been better attended to.

SARAH SEDGHI: Dr Sanggaran does not work at Christmas Island anymore. He says he felt his duty of care as a doctor was compromised last year.

JOHN-PAUL SANGGARAN: It's a situation which I find bizarre. I don't accept that a government department can absolve me of my responsibility to my patients. It can't take away my duty of care.

MARK COLVIN: Doctor John-Paul Sanggaran ending Sarah Sedghi's report.

Doctor Sangarran and associate professor Karen Zwi are speaking tonight at a symposium called Public Health, Human Rights and Asylum Seeker Detention at the University of New South Wales.